While many Americans are scared, overwhelmed or confused by the Internet and the technology evolving around them, they can’t imagine their lives without it. This survey shows people recognize the importance of improving their software skills and staying safe on the web, and are motivated to master new skills and make themselves more digitally literate.

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However, they are discouraged by time and cost restrictions, not knowing where to turn for help and feeling too embarrassed to admit inadequacies—even though they know these skills could help improve their lives.

While many Americans are scared, overwhelmed or confused by the Internet and the technology evolving around them, they can’t imagine their lives without it. This survey shows people recognize the importance of improving their software skills and staying safe on the web, and are motivated to master new skills and make themselves more digitally literate.

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However, they are discouraged by time and cost restrictions, not knowing where to turn for help and feeling too embarrassed to admit inadequacies—even though they know these skills could help improve their lives.

A good question can open minds, shift paradigms, and force the uncomfortable but transformational cognitive dissonance that can help create thinkers. In education, we tend to value a student’s ability to answer our questions. But what might be more important is their ability to ask their own great questions–and more critically, their willingness to do so."

How do you teach your learners to ask good questions? This post shares many resources to help you learn new skills that will assist you in teaching others.

The post begins with a visual, the Teach Thought Learning Taxonomy, which is a template for critical thinking that looks at cognition across six categories. This is described in depth.

Additional tools shared include:

* Socratic Discussionwhich includes a video from Tch (the Teaching Channel)

* Paideia Seminar - "an integrated literacy event built around formal whole class dialogue. The purpose for doing Paideia Seminar is to support students’ ability to think conceptually and communicate collaboratively." There is also a video.

* The Question Game (which was shared previously on this Scoop.it)

* Bloom's Taxonomy

* Question Formation Technique - See the visual at the top, or check out their website at The Right Question Institute. If this is of interest to you they are presenting a workshop in Boston in July. Information on this is available at their website.

SOME TIMES KNOWING THE RIGHT QUESTION TO ASK WILL GET THE RIGHT ANSWER FOR THE PROBLEM YOU ARE TRYING TO SOLVE!! IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT TO ASK YOU MAY NOT GET THE RIGHT ANSWER FOR YEARS BUT THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION THAT WAS ASKED!?!

I've been thinking about the Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Anyone who can be replaced by a computer should be." and this led me to do some deep thinking about the consequences of technology for education...

"I posit that the role of an educator should shift from instructor to learning coach. A learning coach would focus time and energy on communicating, encouraging, monitoring, setting achievable (but challenging) goals, providing accountability to those goals, and guiding learners to see new insights for connecting concepts. In other words, educators should work with technology to (a) eliminate the repetitive tasks and (b) focus on the relationship-oriented things that improve the learning experience"...

“We have to face the fact that most men and women out there in the world of work are more stale than they know, more bored than they would care to admit,” he said. “Boredom is the secret ailment of large-scale organizations. Someone said to me the other day ‘How can I be so bored when I’m so busy?’ I said ‘Let me count the ways.’ Look around you. How many people whom you know well — people even younger than yourselves—are already trapped in fixed attitudes and habits?”...

So what is the opposite of boredom, the personal attribute that allows individuals to keep learning, growing, and changing, to escape their fixed attitudes and habits?... “Personal Renewal,”

Project-based learning may be the best vehicle for personalized learning as teachers move beyond "course-based" approaches and open the way for student-designed curriculum.

Not every teacher may be ready to jump into this type of personalization. To make it work, they'll be required to adopt a different teaching role. They'll need strong management skills and a commitment to disruptive innovation. In addition, the current constructs of the education system may hold us back. What if we could make this dream of personalized PBL a reality?

===> I say that we work toward it, creating a push on the system that demands change in the education of our students. <===

Not every teacher may be ready to jump into this type of personalization. To make it work, they'll be required to adopt a different teaching role. They'll need strong management skills and a commitment to disruptive innovation.In addition, the current constructs of the education system may hold us back. What if we could make this dream of personalized PBL a reality?

===> I say that we work toward it, creating a push on the system that demands change in the education of our students. <===

An art teacher and I (drama teacher) started to use a negotiated approach with students about 15 years ago. By working with students to be aware of curriculum expectations and discussing "what would this look like" we assisted students with developingntheir own learnign pathways and expressions of their learning - in keeping with the legislated requirements of curriculum. I've also noted over the years that elements of the International Baccalaureate - particularly the project work from MYP - reflects a similar approach.

Without reference to research literature, I'd speculate that this speaks to engagement, authenticity and relevance... and needn't be confined to K-12 contexts.... well-documented project work could be conducted outside the confines of formal classes and evidenced against formal assessment criteria.

Project-Based Learning is a great vehicle for allowing student to gain social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. The five core competency skills for SEL (self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision-making, and self-management) can be easily integrated into any project-based learning opportunity.

6 Tips To Engage Passive Learners In eLearning How To Create A Meaningful eLearning Experience: 6 Tips For eLearning Professionals 5 Tips To Enhance Motivation In eLearning Why To Use Professional Voice Actors In eLearning eLearning Interactivity: The Ultimate Guide For eLearning Professionals

"Metacognition is, put simply, thinking about one’s thinking. More precisely, it refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance. Metacognition includes a critical awareness of a) one’s thinking and learning and b) oneself as a thinker and learner."

The recommendations for developing a “classroom culture grounded in metacognition” are great teaching insights and this serves as a powerful link to the research. The following excerpt is one nugget."Giving Students License to Identify Confusions within the Classroom Culture: ask students what they find confusing, acknowledge the difficultiesIntegrating Reflection into Credited Course Work: integrate short reflection (oral or written) that ask students what they found challenging or what questions arose during an assignment/exam/projectMetacognitive Modeling by the Instructor for Students: model the thinking processes involved in your field and sought in your course by being explicit about “how you start, how you decide what to do first and then next, how you check your work, how you know when you are done” (p. 118)

To facilitate these activities, she also offers three useful tables:

Questions for students to ask themselves as they plan, monitor, and evaluate their thinking within four learning contexts—in class, assignments, quizzes/exams, and the course as a whole (p. 115)Prompts for integrating metacognition into discussions of pairs during clicker activities, assignments, and quiz or exam preparation (p. 117)Question"

Metacognition is one of the hardest aspects of student's learning to get from them. Children find it difficult to communicate about their thinking and teacher's find it difficult to teach these skills. This is well worth a read to help develop our own understanding of metacognition.

The Socratic Method Research Portal is the product of over 30 years of research and experimentation with the Socratic method.

enrique rubio royo's insight:

Why Use the Socratic Method?

Education is much more than force feeding information to students and measuring how well they regurgitate that information back to us on command. Education is more than teaching the art of complying with minimum requirements. Living is more than survival. The Socratic method is a powerful tool to inspire students to take a deep interest in their own joyously willful education and thriving in life. The Socratic method, within its influence on the structure of communication, inspires people to embrace the importance of their own thinking and doing as they create a future worth living.

We cannot be content merely fostering the existence of good students, we desperately need excellent citizens. Character traits such as deep curiosity, fearless inquiry, and the passion for gaining understanding and self improvement are a natural result of the successful use of the Socratic method. These traits are developed as students experience regular exposure to parents/guardians and teacher's who are able to engage in a Socratic style of discourse. Such conversations help make better citizens. Socratic inquiry focuses vigorously on thinking about what it means to live well. It lavishes attention on important life questions that everybody needs to consider. As such, it is foundational to human moral development. Vlastos and Graham offer an important insight into the value of the Socratic method: "Why rank that method among the great achievements of humanity? Because it makes moral inquiry a common human enterprise, open to everyone. Its practice calls for no adherence to a philosophical system, or mastery of a specialized technique, or acquisition of a technical vocabulary. It calls for common sense and common speech. And this is as it should be, for how a human being should live is everyone's business."

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